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Oscar Health slips after earnings miss

Oscar Health tumbled as much as 6% in premarket trading after it reported earnings that missed Wall Street estimates even after giving investors a look under the hood last month.

The company posted a diluted loss per share of $0.89, more than the $0.81 loss per share analysts polled by FactSet were expecting. The company attributed that to higher-than-expected medical costs.

Oscar also reported $2.81 billion in revenue, less than the $2.91 billion the Street was penciling in.

The company released preliminary earnings results on July 22 in which it flipped its forecast from expecting operating earnings of $250 million to an operating loss of $250 million. The revision came after it was hit with significantly higher costs of care for members on government-sponsored insurance.

Oscar is one of the last of its peers in the medical insurance business to report earnings. Companies that rely more on government-sponsored programs, like Centene and Elevance Health, have reported results that disappointed Wall Street while those that focus on private plans, like Cigna, have fared better.

Oscar, which has attracted retail attention in recent months, is up about 2% for the year as of market close on Tuesday.

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Oil settles Friday at highest level since start of war

US oil prices moved higher in afternoon trading Friday, sapping strength from the stock market as they posted their highest close since the start of the Iran war.

After another day where the Strait of Hormuz was essentially closed to global tanker traffic, US futures for West Texas Intermediate settled up 3.1% at $98.71 a barrel for an 8.6% weekly gain, per Dow Jones data.

American officials have discussed using the US Navy to escort tankers through the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman, but have said plans for such convoys are not ready yet. However, it is unclear if military convoys would bring an end to the war-related dislocations in the oil market.

“It could help,” Tom Liles, senior vice president of upstream research at energy consulting firm Rystad, told Sherwood News in a recent interview. “It could also go in a lot of different directions if a Navy ship is hit or if a tanker is hit.”

American officials have discussed using the US Navy to escort tankers through the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman, but have said plans for such convoys are not ready yet. However, it is unclear if military convoys would bring an end to the war-related dislocations in the oil market.

“It could help,” Tom Liles, senior vice president of upstream research at energy consulting firm Rystad, told Sherwood News in a recent interview. “It could also go in a lot of different directions if a Navy ship is hit or if a tanker is hit.”

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Memory stocks rebound off last weeks losses

Memory stocks Micron, Sandisk, Western Digital, and Seagate Technology Holdings rose again Friday, putting these crucial providers of chips for AI inference work on track for big weekly gains after last week’s steep losses following the outbreak of war with Iran.

There’s no obvious trigger for the move higher for these shares this week, other than a bit of a recovery in the AI trade more broadly — AI beneficiaries like IT cable and connections maker Amphenol and custom chip and networking company Marvell Technology clawed back some gains this week — perhaps due Oracle’s earnings earlier, and some mean reversion to boot.

Micron is due to report earnings after the close of trading on Wednesday, with the company catching a couple price target hikes this week, including one from Wedbush on Friday.

Sandisk is something of a different story, as its enormous gains over the last 12 months — roughly 1,200% — have made it a momentum play beloved by the retail crowd.

It was up about 20% this week at around 11 a.m. ET. And its nearly 170% gain this year keeps the stock on top of the S&P 500, in terms of price performance.

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